New 'Paradise Papers' Data Leak

A new investigative report from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and its media partners broke on Sunday. (ICIJ is the investigative journalist consortium that brought us last year's Panama Papers investigation, for which they won a Pulitzer for Explanatory Reporting.)

ICIJ: Offshore Trove Exposes Trump-Russia Links And Piggy Banks Of The Wealthiest 1 Percent:

A trove of 13.4 million records exposes ties between Russia and U.S. President Donald Trump’s billionaire commerce secretary, the secret dealings of the chief fundraiser for Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the offshore interests of the queen of England and more than 120 politicians around the world.

The leaked documents, dubbed the Paradise Papers, show how deeply the offshore financial system is entangled with the overlapping worlds of political players, private wealth and corporate giants, including Apple, Nike, Uber and other global companies that avoid taxes through increasingly imaginative bookkeeping maneuvers...

...The new files shine a light on a different cast of underexplored island havens, including some with cleaner reputations and higher price tags, such as the Cayman Islands and Bermuda....

• BBC, Paradise Papers
• BBC News, Paradise Papers: Apple's Secret Tax Bolthole Revealed
• Forbes, Paradise Papers Expose Rich And Famous Using Tax Havens
• New York Times, After a Tax Crackdown, Apple Found a New Shelter for Its Profits
• New York Times, Commerce Secretary's Offshore Ties to Putin 'Cronies'
• New York Times, Kremlin Cash Behind Billionaire's Twitter and Facebook Investments
• New York Times, The Paradise Papers Hacking and the Consequences of Privacy
• New York Times, Paradise Papers Shine Light on Where the Elite Hide Their Money
• Vice, The Paradise Papers Make the Republican Tax Plan Look Insane

I also posted my initial reactions on Surly Subgroup: Some Initial Thoughts on the Paradise Papers Leak

This was at Least in Part a Cyber Hack. Most of the news coverage I’m seeing is focused on the content on the leak, but it’s worth noting that at least with respect to Appleby, this new leak was in part a result of a cyberattack on Appleby that happened last year. I haven’t seen anything to suggest that this was a data theft by an insider (e.g., employee) turned whistleblower. In its response to the leak, Appleby defended itself and noted the challenges of cyber-crime for individuals and businesses.

The Appleby Hack Occurred in 2016. The public data release only happened on November 5, 2017. This means that someone (the hacker(s) or the journalists) has had the data for at least 10 months before releasing it to the public. This is in line with some previous leaks, where ICIJ and other media partners collaborated to analyze, process, and frame the leaked data before finally releasing partial information on the ICIJ website....